ARLINGTON, Texas — All season long last year, the Texas Rangers tried to get Yu Darvish to throw more fastballs in the strike zone.

ARLINGTON, Texas — All season long last year, the Texas Rangers tried to get Yu Darvish to throw more fastballs in the strike zone.

One of those Texas Rangers was his catcher — A.J. Pierzynski.

“Maybe he finally listened to somebody that he needs to throw more fastballs,” Pierzynski said. “Last year we tried to get on him about that, and he never did it.”

Darvish did it on Friday night against the Red Sox at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Featuring his mid-90s fastball and a darting slider, Darvish retired the first 20 hitters and only lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning — the second time in two seasons he’s come up one out shy of a no-no.

The Red Sox have lurched awkwardly out of the gate as they defend their World Series title, alternately stumbling and righting themselves in the first six weeks of the season. They barely avoided the ultimate indignity when David Ortiz singled through an overshifted infield for first Boston hit of the game.

But the late hit by Ortiz only provided the tiniest of silver linings for the Red Sox in an 8-0 defeat at the hands of Darvish and the Rangers.

The last pitcher to no-hit the Red Sox was Seattle’s Chris Bosio on April 22, 1993. The Red Sox have gone more than 21 full seasons without being hit, the longest such stretch in franchise history. Before that, the longest stretch came from 1931-51.

Darvish fired a fastball that touched 96 miles per hour, floated a curveball that dipped to 62 and zipped a darting slider that he threw anywhere from 78-85. He struck out 12 Red Sox hitters, including six straight in the middle innings. He struck out seven hitters with his slider and five with his fastball.

The fastball was the key to everything.

“He was throwing his fastball early, and he was locating it, too, so that made it even tougher,” Dustin Pedroia said. “When you get to two strikes and he hasn’t whipped out his best pitch yet, there’s a reason why the numbers were what they were.”

Darvish threw 24 fastballs in his near no-hitter against Houston in his first start of the 2013 season, and he threw 30 fastballs when he struck out 14 Red Sox hitters at Rangers Ballpark almost exactly a year ago. He threw more sliders and cutters than fastballs in both of those games. He threw almost as many sliders (30.3 percent of pitches) as fastballs (39.4 percent of pitches) over the course of the entire season last year.

Against Boston on Friday night, Darvish threw a whopping 77 fastballs to 35 sliders — complementing the fastball with the slider and not the other way around. He got 11 swings and misses with his slider. He threw 62 percent of his fastballs for strikes.

“I don’t think he’s ever thrown that many fastballs, especially consistently where he throws them for strikes,” Pierzynski said. “Normally he throws them halfway to home plate.”

“He threw more fastballs now for a strike than he did last time we faced him,” Ortiz said. “He was bouncing the fastball a lot the last time we faced him. I remember his command with the fastball wasn’t there. This time it was.”

“He had four pitches working for him within the strike zone,” Boston manager John Farrell said. “It keeps our guys off balance. Still, his slider is what makes him pretty special.”

The no-hit bid first appeared to end with two outs in the seventh inning. Ortiz lofted a 93-mile-per-hour fastball into shallow right field, where both second baseman Rougned Odor and right fielder Alex Rios had a chance to settle under it. Both committed halfway. Neither caught the ball, and it dropped to the grass.

The ruling from the official scorer took several minutes to be announced, by which time Mike Napoli had drawn a walk — the second baserunner Darvish had allowed in the game. Official scorers almost always award a hit to the batter if the ball drops untouched, even if it looked like it should have been fielded. When Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina allowed an infield pop fly to drop between them in the World Series, it was ruled a hit.

“I know I hit a ball that was supposed to be caught,” Ortiz said. “The guy is throwing a no-hitter. We all understand that. But when it comes down to the rules in the game, that’s a hit. That’s the rule that we all know, and that’s the rule the game has for more than 100 years. If the ball in the outfield drops between the infield and the outfield and nobody touched it, that’s a hit.”

“Typically, 10 out of 10 (times), that’s a base hit,” Farrell said.

But when the ruling came in, Rios has been charged with an error — preserving the no-hitter.

“I felt like the second baseman or the right fielder under normal effort could’ve clearly caught the ball,” official scorer Steve Weller said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of argument about that. (Rule 10.12a1) clearly states that a fly ball that lands, that’s allow to hit the ground, that in the judgment of the official scorer under normal effort could be caught, you’re to award an error on the play.”

That preserved the no-hitter until the ninth inning. Dustin Pedroia grounded out and Shane Victorino struck out, leaving it up to Ortiz. Ortiz swung at a 2-1 fastball and grounded it past the dive of Odor, who was stationed in shallow right field.

“If you don’t break up the no-hitter, you’ll be showing up on MLB (Network) and ESPN for about a month,” Ortiz said.

The entire crowd of 45,392 — all standing and cheering throughout the ninth inning — gave Darvish a standing ovation as he was removed from the game.

As has been the case for most of the season, Clay Buchholz pitched with uncharacteristically hittable stuff — just four swings and misses and more than 20 at-bat-prolonging foul balls. He yielded 10 hits, the most he’s allowed since Milwaukee tagged him for 13 in his first start of the season.

“He was up,” Pierzynski said. “The last couple of starts, he’d been really good, been down. But tonight he was just up a little bit, and they didn’t miss it.”

Elvis Andrus collected four hits and scored three times as part of a Rangers attack that came after Buchholz relentlessly. An Adrian Beltre double in the first inning plated the first run, and Prince Fielder and Alex Rios drove in runs in the third. Buchholz and reliever Chris Capuano combined to allow five runs in a fifth inning capped by a Leonys Martin home run.